


Snake in the Grass

by draculard



Category: The Conjuring (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Characters as Bad Guys, Amityville Horror, Animal Death, Clairvoyance, Deals With The Devil, Demonic Host, Demonic Possession, Demonic Power Couple, Evil Ed Warren, Evil Lorraine Warren, F/M, Fraud, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:20:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26623543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: Ed and Lorraine aren't exactly lying about their skills.But they might be lying about which side they're on.
Relationships: Ed Warren/Lorraine Warren
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23
Collections: Darkest Night 2020





	Snake in the Grass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alchemise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemise/gifts).



The house was new and Lorraine was alone in the front garden when she saw it  — a thin little garter snake, its scales a pale shade of yellow-green, writhing through the dead grass to meet her. 

She froze and watched it, a tulip bulb clasped loosely in her hand. She’d always liked snakes. She remembered seeing them at the zoo as a child, and how she’d asked if she could hold it while the other girls all shied away. The snake twisted toward her slowly, almost unconsciously, as if she was just another inconsequential obstacle on its path.

It twined over her fingers. Its tongue flickered out and touched her skin. It bumped its nose against the tulip bulb and then looked up to meet her eyes.

Its mouth opened. Between its teeth, a voice hissed out to greet her.

_ I can make you famous, _ it said.

* * *

They were lying in bed together when Lorraine twisted her legs around Ed’s and rolled on top of him  — not to make love, but to face him, to look him in the eyes.

“Did you ever want to do something more than sell paintings?” she asked.

His eyes shifted to the side, to his latest work in progress. Gently, Lorraine put her fingers on the edge of his jaw and turned his face back so that he met her eyes again. 

“Not to disparage your work,” she said with a crooked smile. He scoffed, his hands coming up to rest on her bare waist.

“It’s mostly your work these days, anyway,” he said. Lorraine pretended she didn’t hear; she had his full attention now, and she meant to use it. She bent down, her lips hovering just above his.

“Do you believe in demons?” she asked.

Ed kissed her with a smile; with his lips against hers, he hummed, but didn’t respond to the question. His thumbs ran circles over her hips. 

She framed the question differently.

“Do you want to be famous?” she asked.

* * *

They said Eve was the first sinner. Lorraine had never paid much attention in Sunday school, but she more than made up for it now. Ed brought her the books she needed and she piled them up on the dining room table, poring through them  — taking notes, making highlights, picking out what might be useful to them and what might not be.

“You’ll be the clairvoyant,” Ed decided one night over supper. His eyes were fixed to the piles of occult and Catholic books on the table around them. “And I’ll be the demonologist. I can fake that well enough.”

Lorraine smiled, speared a sprig of asparagus on her fork. “I am the clairvoyant,” she teased him, and when he laughed, she knew he didn’t believe her.

Ten months later, when they met Ronnie DeFeo in a Long Island bar, she made sure he’d never doubt her again. 

_ You find me the hosts I need, _ the snake had told her,  _ and I’ll make sure you get rich from it. _

Even Lorraine had her doubts, but when she kissed Ronnie and saw his eyes go black, she knew she’d made the right choice.

When they saw the news report  — six dead in Amityville  — she saw the excitement mixed with fear on Ed’s face, saw the awe in his eyes when he looked at her, and knew he knew it, too. 

* * *

He liked to watch her kiss other men.

He liked watching blackness eat at the whites of their eyes. 

He liked watching their muscles go lax, liked watching them tense back up again with newfound power, liked watching the first hints of murderous rage before Lorraine gently guided them out the door. Before she sicced them on their own families, let them kill the ones they used to love.

Each time, he looked at her afterward and couldn’t hold back a smile; each time, the sight of it got him hard. It was a formula he never got tired of: she found the devil a host; they made love while the host released his rage on some innocent outside; they swooped in together in the aftermath, the perfect couple, the only ones who could fix each new family’s woes.

And the TV and radio interviews trickled in.

And the book deals.

And the money.

And he liked watching her infect people, Ed thought. He liked it more than anything in the world.

* * *

“I’m going to have a vision,” Lorraine whispered, her arm wrapped around his. Her lips almost touched his ear. “Pretend to be afraid, love. I’ll tell them I’ve seen you murdered by a demon.”

He smiled at her, pretending she’d said something sweet in case the cameras were on them. “You think they’ll like that?” he asked.

“I know they’ll like that,” she responded, squeezing his arm. “In fact, I think they’ll eat it up.”

He turned his smile toward the cameras, then past them  — to the frightened family huddled across the way, all of them unaware that they were looking even now at the people who’d turned their husband to murder  — not at their saviors, like they thought. His smile widened. He squeezed Lorraine’s arm back.

“I think I can handle being murdered by a demon,” he murmured, already seeing dollar signs. “Just make it convincing.”

She huffed out a laugh, leaned up to kiss him.

“I will,” she said.

* * *

He was mowing the lawn like he did every other Saturday, pushing the mower ahead of him, sweat trickling down the back of his neck. He didn’t see anything in the grass ahead of him  — not until the blades thunked down on something solid. He watched blades of grass spray out the side of the mower  — and chunks of something that looked like flesh  — and spots of red that stained the neat and orderly arrangement of his lawn.

He stopped, knelt down, examined the broken body of whatever it was he’d mowed down. He found delicate, crushed bones wreathed in pale skin, covered in scales. A snake.

He’d run over a snake.

He turned his head slowly, to look at the picture window of the lovely little house he’d bought for Lorraine, and saw her pale face watching him from inside.


End file.
